New York "Agreement"

Agreement Will Alter Evaluations Of Teachers, The New York Times, Tue May 11 2010. Jennifer Medina (excerpts for space)

The State Education Department and New York's teachers' unions have reached a deal to overhaul teacher evaluations and tie them to student test scores, .....

The agreement, ..... would scrap the current system whereby teachers were rated simply satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Instead, annual evaluations would place teachers in one of four categories -- highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. While the deal would not have any immediate effect on teacher pay, it could make it easier for schools to fire teachers deemed subpar.

"We believe that if done correctly this will change the landscape dramatically," said David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner. "This is not a gotcha system. This is about creating professional development that can really improve education."

Teachers would be measured on a 100-point scale, with 20 percent points based on how much students improve on the standardized state exams. Another 20 percent would be based on local tests, which would have to be developed by each school system. After two years, 25 percent would be based on the state exams and 15 percent would come from the local tests.

The remainder of the evaluation will come from observations from principals and other teachers, and other measures. If teachers are rated ineffective for two consecutive years, they would face firing through an expedited hearing process that must conclude within 60 days. Currently hearings can drag on for several months.
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Testing data would be used for only a fraction of the teachers in the state, because many teachers instruct in subjects or grades that do not have an annual exam. Mr. Steiner and Ms. Tisch have criticized the state exams, saying they may have become too easy and predictable in the last several years. But Mr. Steiner said that they were "not useless," and that the department was taking steps to improve them, including changes this year that broadened the material covered by the tests.
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New York City began evaluating teachers based on test scores three years ago. But in 2008, the Legislature banned the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, a move that was backed by the union.
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